Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood – 49

Realizing that Hohenheim is nearby, Pride launches a fierce attack against Ed, Greed, and Lan Fan. Ed sees that Lan Fan still isn’t 100% with her arm and saves her from Pride’s attack because he knows they’ll need her later. Hohenheim meanwhile wakes Al and then learns whats going on from Fu who has also brought the injured Heinkel. Al blames himself for what’s happened, but he comes up with an idea and tells his father about it. Hohenheim thus heads out onto the battlefield, and his presence causes Pride to pull back his shadows. Al then charges at Pride from behind and gets caught, but while Pride has his shadows around Al, Hohenheim uses his alchemy to trap both of them in a dome carved from the earth.

Ed gets angry at his father for trapping Al too, but Hohenheim reveals that this was Al’s plan all along. Since Pride can’t use his shadows in the darkness of the dome, Al is content about being stuck there with him until the promised day is over. Hohenheim explains that Al didn’t want to tell Ed because he knew that Ed would be against the idea, and through the walls of the dome, Al apologizes to his brother and claims that he’ll be fine for the day. With Pride out of the way, Greed decides to flee the scene and heads by himself to Central because he knows that the only Homunculus left there are Father and Sloth. His goal, as he had stated before, is to become king of the world.

At around this same time, Kimblee finishes killing off a bunch of Ishval men. Back inside the dome, Al talks to Pride about how the Homunculus don’t understand humans and how they could have messed up the Homunculus plans by leaving the country to save themselves. Pride acknowledges that there are people who only care about themselves, but as a counter-example, he cites how King Bradley’s wife once tried to save him from being run over by a car. It made him think about mothers since he had never had one, and he admits to having liked that life, but it also meant that there were people who would sacrifice their own lives to protect something important. That’s what they were counting on with their plan here.

A little while later, Scar and Marcoh’s group arrives in the area and learns that May Chang returned to Central. They make their way to the outskirts of the slum where Pride is now trapped and are reunited with Ed’s group. After some discussion, Fu decides to head off alone to Central to do some scouting, and the rest get ready for the start of the promised day. A few hours later, on this day when there’s supposed to be a solar eclipse, Denny Brosh wakes up in Central and sees smoke rising across town. It is there that Mustang, after one last trip to visit Hughes’ grave, is striking with his group. They still have King Bradley’s wife with them, but the soldiers sent after them have orders only to keep Mustang alive, and the group gets surrounded.

Preview

The battle that this episode started with was pretty intense since Pride kept coming within inches of cutting up Ed. As expected, it was Hohenheim who eventually challenged him and got all the extra coollooking shots, but surprisingly it was Al’s quick thinking and plan that ultimately trapped Pride. I guess this means that Al will be sitting out the promised day? I can’t really see that happening since the brothers have already spent so much time apart, and it wouldn’t be right for Al to be absent from what I assume to be the climax of the story.

I should mention that the Kimblee eye-catch after the commercial break gave away the fact that Kimblee was returning this episode, and we didn’t have to wait long in the second half to see him again. I had assumed that he was still locked up after what he did at Briggs, but I guess high command or Father pulled some strings to get him free. It’s a little mind-boggling how many people are in motion for this promised day on all sides. Greed also revealed (or rather, reconfirmed) that he wants to take power, however he didn’t mention how he plans to take on Father and Sloth since they aren’t exactly pushovers.

Anyway, the conversation between Al and Pride slowed down the pace of the episode a lot, and most of the second half felt like a transition from the big night battle to the promised day. This was further emphasized by how they ended on Ed putting back on his red coat and declaring the start of the promised day. Because of that, I didn’t think there would be a post-ED segment, but there actually was with the reappearance of Denny Brosh (it’s been so long I had to look up his last name) and the cliffhanger with Mustang and company seemingly getting shot. It’s a nice cliffhanger, but I’m sure Mustang’s group will be fine since I can’t imagine them dying at this point, never mind the fact that they’re alive in the preview for next week.

Looks like they inserted that scene at Hughes’ grave to keep him in our thoughts for the later… confrontation. It still won’t make it any less stupid (story wise), though I’m sure plenty of folks will enjoy the action, anyway.

I really did like that part in the manga, it was pretty funny seeing Envy getting burned all over the place… although I did feel sorry for him in a really strange kind of way, and I actually cried at the end of it… I guess you know pretty well what happens. I find it kind of strange that I cried, though. Can’t really say we LOVE Envy, right…? xD At least I think the Homunculi get fitting deaths, and that’s gotta count for something.

This episode was AWESOME, anyway. And the pacing is perfect (I think). Thanks for blogging!

While I wasn’t exactly feeling bad for Envy, and seeing Roy bust loose like that was pretty cool, I didn’t like Arakawa bringing Envy back just to wrap up the Hughes thing. Envy was better off having been defeated by Marcoh, and carried off to Xing, never to been seen again, rather than returning just so Roy can do the same thing in a one-sided fight. I love Roy, but he already took out a homnuculi. And while Ed’s words were what ultimately led to Envy’s suicide, it felt like Arakawa was tossing me a scrap out of pity.

i’ll be so sad when envy…you know……*sniffles* but in MY version of the story, he does NOT die, (even though he tries to) and it’s hikari!lust that gives her life to protect envy. also, after kimbley gets killed, kion kills herself. thus leaving envy behind, bringing him into a compleate breakdown.

Yeah, I know. He already killed one. That’s probably what Arakawa thought as well, and she had him commit suicide. But I know what you mean, it would have been a good way to end it with May going to Xing.

But if May had taken Envy to Xing, it’s very much possible that Envy could be let loose there too. Anything could happen, and I seriously think it was a bad idea to let the naive May take Envy. Only fortunate that Envy never reached Xing and was brought back and killed.

Penguintruth, having Envy leave for Xing to never come back, that’s the biggest cop-out I can think of. Arakawa knows what each character is there for and their role. She made Envy sneaky and manipulative just to ensure he would get Mei back to Central. That’s Envy’s personality; she didn’t go “Oops, I need him to go back so Mustang have his chance”, she planned it out very carefully.

You’re really looking down on her writing ability; but I’m glad you don’t call the shots with this show; because it would be plain terrible if you were in charge of it.

The split between the actual ending of the episode (before closing theme) and the events afterwards is getting ridiculously long. Why don’t they just keep everything together and close it all off with one cliffhanger..?

@ Homuncurus!: I agree, the theme came out at what? 19 minutes. But it’s a more effective way to show different cliffhangers in my opinion. I like it. If they showed the little scene straight after Ed’s big “this is the beginning of the Promised Day” it wouldn’t have seemed as awesome.

Shows how long it’s been since I’ve read the manga. I didn’t remember Kimblee going on his happy killing spree (unless that is anime-only material)

Well it seemed to me like she just forgot she had the Hughes thing to wrap up and retconned Envy’s defeat to give the readers a big cathartic moment when Roy blasts Envy with his flames.

Roy wanting revenge on Envy is pointless, anyway, since he’s just a trigger man, and not the person who ordered Hughes’ death.

Thematically, Envy’s defeat at Marcoh’s hands made the most sense. It wasn’t as “holy shit awesome” as Roy’s fight with him (which is one-sided and a little overrated), but as far as writing, it was the best end for that character: Envy is forever going to be an experiment to be poked at by people he looks down on. A fate worse than death.

Also, I’m not “looking down on her writing ability”. I think she’s an excellent writer. But even excellent writers make mistakes. Sometimes I think Arakawa is trying too hard to make these big, sensational moments and it detracts from the overall integrity of the narrative.

@damian
YES! Two new action tracks in this episode. The one that plays when Hoho is enclosing Pride is amazing. Definitely looking forward to hearing more of it.
@penguin
I understand what you’re saying completely, and to a point, I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said. That being said, though, what the Envy/Roy fight added were much-needed new layers to the old characters we’re used to. The one-sided “badass”, perfect hero that killed Lust last time was shown to be an immensely flawed person when it came to Envy. His need for that blind revenge (hurrhurr, pun) got the better of him, and we got to see an important side of him never before seen.
As for Envy, though humiliated once in front of Marcoh, this time around his character was also expanded and shown his true nature. A little info to the audience that honestly
needed it to better understand this seemingly redundant douche. What I wish had happened was Envy’s death made earlier, between Lust’s and Gluttony’s, with Marcoh AND Mustang there to see it.

@ Hen: I noticed that too!! I thought they tried to overemphasize his “evilness” too much… but it didn’t really feel right when Pride was talking about his adopted mother… On the other hand, I never liked Pride much. After this episode however, I’m starting to see a much more humane side to his personality ^^ especially when he said that he liked his mother… hopefully it’s not all a lie =X
I doubt Al’s going to sit out on this day either so I’m anxious to see how they get out =)

It’s not that Pride’s evilness is overemphasized, or that he uses an eyeliner. XD
It’s a way for Bones to show he is tired. That or he should have been sleeping for hours by now. ;)
(Yes, I know the answer. But you know, the spoilers and such).

LOL I love the part where Pride asked Greed if it’s ok to eat him, with the whole evil shota look and the “can I eat you” in super formal and polite form “tabete mo ii desu ka?” as opposed to Gluttony’s signature “tabete ii?”. Plus he said it in such a cute/sweet tone XD

It’s so sad that RC is shutting down. But if anyone wants to disagree with me and get into the most ridiculous fanwank battles, there’s always *my* blog. It’s not nearly as good as RC, though, and I’d have home field advantage, but I don’t delete disagreeing comments.

I’m so going to miss this place and it’s awesome early FMA caps, which I have folders of on my hard drive.